Shoutout: Tracing the NFL’s path from brutality to family fare

How did the NFL get from the bloody, bruising, no-face-mask game of the 1950s to a point where Ndamukong Suh can get a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty for pushing a scrambling Jay Cutler to the ground with two hands?

The short answer, writes Featured Columnist Ty Schalter, is TV. The longer answer, in his piece How and Why the NFL Transitioned from Football to Two-Hand Touch, makes for pretty compelling reading.

Schalter compares the NFL of the 1950s to today’s MMA: “It had many hardcore followers—but general sports fans found the raw violence appalling.”

The NFL trying to strike that balance between family entertainment and brutality is the story of the last 50 years, and Schalter tells it well.